Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 15
May 1990 from one or more ofthe following: raw data from U.S. Government
agency sources, correspondencewith POW/MIA families, published sources,
interviews. Updated by the P.O.W.NETWORK 2002.

SYNOPSIS:

North Vietnam learned the lessons of modern
aerial warfare rapidly. Over the short span of 36 months, Ho Chi Minh,
with the help of hissupporters, led the North Vietnamese military from
technology-poor andground-oriented military to one with one of the world's
strongest and mostsophisticated air defense networks.The motivation was
simple. During the 1965-1968 ROLLING THUNDER program,U.S. aircraft dropped
a daily average of 800 tons of bombs, rockets andmissiles on North Vietnam.
The Soviet Union and China to a lesser degree,provided surface-to-air missiles
(SAM), anti-aircraft guns, small arms andjet aircraft almost as fast as
the dock workers at Haiphong could unload the cargo. They also sent an
array of technical advisors and food products to support their communist
brethren. Consequently, North Vietnamese missile sites grew from ground
zero in 1965 to estimates three years later of two hundred SAM sites nationwide
and some thirty missile battalions in the Hanoi area alone. Each battalion
contained up to six missile launchers plus accompanying radar, computers
and generators.

Surface-to-air missiles, however, were just
one element for U.S. pilots to reckon with. By September 1967 the defense
system included some eight thousand lethal AAA guns firing twenty-five
thousand tons of ammunition each month at American planes, a complex radar
system, and computerized control centers. An elaborate warning system was
devised, the more sophisticated systems keyed by Soviet observation trawlers
on duty near American carriers. These spy ships relayed how many aircraft
were leaving the deck, their bomb loads and side numbers, and it was not
too difficult for North Vietnam to compute where and when the aircraft
would arrive and to prepare a proper welcome. The primitive alarm systems
utilized observation towers, whistles, gongs, drums and triangles to warn
of impending attacks. The rules of engagement (ROE) limited ROLLING THUNDER's
damage on the enemy. It was actually designed only to apply military pressure
"for the specific purpose of halting aggression in South Vietnam," not
for inflicting maximum damage. Unfortunately, U.S. aircrews died while
fighting under these less than ideal conditions as the North Vietnamese
became very efficient at employing their defense network. The SAMs (Soviet-supplies
SA-2 Guideline missiles) consisted of a thirty-five-foot-high, two-stage,
radar-guided rocket topped by a 350-pound explosive warhead. The missile,
with a ceiling of sixty thousand feet, was fused to go off on contact;
by proximity or altitude; or on command from below. SAMs were typically
fired in pairs, and in most cases were lethal if they exploded within three
hundred feet of an aircraft. The first SAM site was discovered in April
1965, yet U.S. pilots were forbidden to take immediate defensive action.
A second SAM site was spotted about a year later, and by mid-July, several
more sites were photographed in the area of Hanoi and Haiphong. Defensive
strikes were not approved for any of the sites, primarily because Washington
leadership feared killing Soviet personnel involved in training the North
Vietnamese crews. It was not until the North Vietnamese had shot down a
number of U.S. aircraft that U.S. air forces were permitted to strike back
at the sites. On the night of August 11-12, the first Navy aircraft fell
victim to SAMs. LCDR Francis D. Roberge and LTJG Donald H. Brown of VA
23, flying A4Es from the deck of the carrier USS MIDWAY, were struck by
SAMS while on a road reconnaissance some sixty miles south of Hanoi. The
pilots saw what they believed were two flares glowing beneath the clouds
and coming closer. Too late, they realized that glowing missile propellant
was the source of the light. Brown's aircraft exploded and crashed, while
Roberge's limped back to the ship with a horribly scorched and peppered
belly.

Navy reaction was immediate, but costly. On
Black Friday, August 13 1965, seventy-six low-level "Iron Hand" missions
were launched to seek out and destroy SAM sites. Five aircraft and three
pilots were lost to enemy guns, and seven other planes were damaged, but
no SAMs were discovered. One of the pilots lost on August 13 were Navy
CDR Harry E. Thomas, skipper of the "Blue Tails -- VA 153, an attack squadron
flying off the carrier CORAL SEA. Thomas, a Korean War veteran had been
skipper of the squadron since May. He had a lot of air combat experience,
and important to the squadron, a lot of night experience. He taught the
younger officers night flying, which in Vietnam, proved to be not only
highly successful, but also safer than day strikes. The method used was
to fly low at about 100 or 200 feet beneath the flares to find the target
and, using low-level, lay-down ordnance such as snakeyes, cluster bombs
or gun pods, to destroy such targets as enemy truck convoys.

On the August 13 mission, Blue Tail members
went on a mass, low-level strike looking for SAM sites. Thomas' aircraft
flew into a volley of flak and was hit by heavy anti-aircraft fire and
crashed. Observers noted that the canopy was still intact on the aircraft,
thus precluding any chance that Thomas survived. He was listed Killed in
Action, Body Not Recovered. SAM evasion tactics were still being devised.
The current tactic was to fly in low, below two thousand feet because thei
North Vietnamese could not get the radar guidance working at that altitude.
But it also put a pilot right down into the fire zone of small arms and
even foreign objects thrown by hand that the aircraft could conceivably
ingest and go down from. Thomas had not believed the tactic of flying en
masse at low levels was smart, but was not given the normal tactical flexibility
to change it. The Navy never used this particular tactic again. They learned
that, even at high speed, you couldn't beat massed automatic weapons. Eventually,
the military moved from medium alititude to 3,000 to 5,000 feet and had
more success dealing with SAMs.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy was that VA153's
aircraft was fitted with the APR-23 Redhead, a device that would have been
helpful in locating SAM sites, had the squadron been trained to use them.
Thomas and CDR David Leue, whoreplaced him as squadron skipper, tried to
generate interest in using this device rather than sending in a mass, low-level
group looking for SAMS. Their efforts were futile. Following Thomas' death,
however, tactics were changed, based on the material and information available
at the time. The second pilot lost on Black Friday was Air Force Captain
Fredric M. Mellor. Mellor was the pilot of an RF101C "Voodoo" tactical
reconnaissance aircraft. During his mission, Mellor's aircraft was hit
by enemy fire and crashed. Mellor radioed that he had successfully ejected
and was on the ground without serious injury. He was advised to avoid further
radio contact until the arrival of rescue forces. When the rescue helicopter
approached the area and attempted to make radio contact with Mellor, there
was no reply. Subsequent search operations were negative. Mellor had disappeared.
In U.S. Government records dated 1970-1973, Mellor's last known location
was listed in Son La Province, North Vietnam, about 25 miles due west of
the city of Hoa Binh. Defense Department records of 25 July 1980 show he
disappeared about 25 miles east-northeast of that location, or about 100
miles due west of Hanoi on the tri-province borders of Son La, Nghia Lo
and Hoa Binh.

The third pilot shot down on Black Friday was
U.S. Navy LT Gene R. Gollahon F8D pilot. Gollahon's aircraft was hit by
enemy fire about 10 miles west of the city of Phat Diem in Thanh Hoa Province,
North Vietnam. The aircraft crashed and exploded. No parachute was noted
and no emergency radio beeper signals were heard. Little hope was held
out for Gollahon's survival and he was declared Killed/Body Not Recovered.
Of the four pilots lost in the beginning days of ROLLING THUNDER, three
were declared dead. On August 14, 1985, twenty years and two days after
he was shot down, the Vietnamese "discovered" the remains of Donald H.
Brown, Jr. and returned them to U.S. control. Of the four, only Fredric
Mellor was declared Missing in Action. Public perception of the word "MIA"
is ashes on an isolated mountainside, or someone lost at the bottom of
the sea. Mellor was alive and well on the ground. There is every reason
to believe he was captured, or that the North Vietnamese know very well
what happened to him on that day. Yet, the Vietnamese deny knowledge of
him, and the U.S. has not found a way to bring him home -- dead or alive.

Between 1965 and 1968, the Navy's Seventh Fleet
lost 382 planes over Southeast Asia, of which fifty-eight fell victim to
SAMs nd the rest to AAA and small arms fire.